


The Consequences

by rubypop



Series: Blood and Hunger [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, Demons, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gen, M/M, Needles, Psychological Torture, Revenge, Slavery, Suspense, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:56:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1677263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubypop/pseuds/rubypop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So you've come for me," Fenris said. Anders's eyes were lanterns of chilling blue light. The air rang with biting cold. "I've come to rectify your transgression," Justice said.</p><p>
  <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1677263/navigate">Chapter Index</a>
</p><p>About the series: Fenris, Anders, and Hawke are pulled along the thread of causality -- and caught in a web of blood, sex, and horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Long past midnight, Anders stood alone in the clinic. He was bent over the washbasin, had been scrubbing his hands vigorously, but now he stood still, staring. A dot of blood dropped into the water. Slowly it dissipated, and before long it was joined by another.

He touched his lip. He'd bit through it without even noticing.

"Anders, please," she'd urged him, her voice steady and calm, despite the horror that surged up inside him. "You must not."

He'd cried out, something guttural and strange that could have been a scream, and clutched her against his chest, cradling her head as though she were a child, as though she were the one screaming.

He wiped his mouth, finally tasting it.

A chill furrowed through him. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Goosebumps rippled over his arms. He didn't have to see to know that a cold blue light reflected off the basin. He exhaled as though he could empty himself of air. The chill subsided for the moment.

"I left him there," she'd said, as Anders gingerly applied medicine to the lacerations on her neck. "Twitching." She'd swallowed hard.

His eyes had burned then and he'd squeezed them shut, turning away so she wouldn't see.

Anders went over it now, just as she'd described it in careful, measured words. How she'd whispered an incantation with her fingers dripping blood, how she'd shaken with fear that he would hear her, lying so close to her. But Fenris had been drinking, she'd told him, and if he'd heard anything at all, he hadn't the time to react: she'd turned over just as the convulsions began. Wet choking sounds gurgled from his throat, his eyes wide and staring, staring directly at her with knowing accusation, and as the tremors ripped through him she'd thrown herself from the bed and run.

Cold behind his eyes now, sharp and piercing. Anders wiped his lip again and dried his hands.

"You musn't," she'd said as he held her, rocking back and forth. Laying a hand on his arm to cover a flicker of blue light. "You musn't."

Anders knew that she had not been addressing him.

#

She was sound asleep in the straw-stuffed bed in the clinic's back room. Anders sat down beside her, relieved at the lack of tension in her expression. No nightmares tormented her. Twice he'd already changed the bandages on her neck, and he leaned down to inspect them now.

Dark bruises, eggplant purple and murky green, blossomed beneath the linen. He bit his lip. The image of Fenris — of that wild beast — closing his fingers around her throat . . . no. Even just the thought was too much.

He whispered it as quietly as he could: "I'm sorry, my love. I'm sorry. But he will not listen to me."

He reached out with one hand, a hand that was his but not his, and, wreathed in a cold blue glow, his fingers ran through her hair.

#

Fenris stumbled as he rushed down the foyer stairs. He seized the railing to keep from falling. His balance was off — had been off since he'd awakened in a stupor with bloody spume on his mouth and late sunlight slanting through the windows. He'd had no idea how much time had passed, and disjointed memories of the previous night were slow to return. But in a shattering moment of sobriety he recalled the agony of every single muscle in his body contracting at once as Hawke had looked on, terrified.

He hadn't taken much — didn't have much to take with him, anyhow — and raced now for the mansion's rear exit. It was time to leave this place for good.

He traveled the back alleys of Hightown, keeping close to the shadows, glancing about at every corner. He grasped the handle of his greatsword, ready to draw it at any time. Tied around his wrist was a scrap of red — a knot of torn fabric that he'd snatched from the bedchamber floor in a dizzying moment of partial consciousness.

#

Anders left the clinic, walking a path he did not know, seeing without seeing, and seeking out a purpose that was not his, that he had promised Hawke he would not pursue, and he was a shade moving in steadily-illuminating darkness, a passenger now in his own skin.

#

A tempestuous wind howled across the Wounded Coast, stirring the waves into a frenzy. Fenris picked along the jagged cliffs and shielded his face. The wind whistled through his gauntlets and tore at the sword on his back. Numerous times he nearly fell, and he stepped gingerly, feeling along the rock with his bare feet.

Because the wind whipped so, and the wild sea was roaring, he did not notice the veneer of blue light flicker from the rocks, and could not anticipate the arcane projectile that slammed, full force, into his spine.

He was thrown to the ground so suddenly that he didn't even cry out. He heard the crunching footfalls of someone running through the gravel. He flipped onto his back, reaching for his sword. But a second enchantment knocked him backwards, and he groped empty air.

His markings ignited. He tore from the ground, a blinding shock of silver on the night-black coast, and charged his attacker. A robed figure towered against an outcropping of rock, and for an instant his mind flashed to Danarius, though he knew who it must be, for it could be no one else.

Anders raised a staff, shouting an incantation.

Fenris splayed his claws, streaking forth and spouting hot silver light.

Anders's eyes blazed ghostly blue, and echoes of a deep and powerful voice rang out against the cliffs, and just as Fenris reached him he was struck by a final spell, collapsing at the mage's feet, the gritty shore rushing up to him, and the last thing he saw before blacking out was the wild spectral stare of those two blazing eyes.

#

From deep within himself, Anders watched the preparation of the ritual.

He walked a wide circle, counting his steps, while he drew a glyph in the sand of the cavern floor. He unpacked vials of lyrium and rolls of fraying linen. Fenris lay prostrate against the cavern wall, stripped of his chest plate, the steel gauntlets with their pointed claws.

When all was ready Anders moved him to the center of the glyph. He wondered how so slight an elf could fight with such ferocity. He bound together Fenris's wrists and ankles, and blindfolded him, knotting the linen tightly behind his head. Tiny crescent-moon cuts and scratches marred the dark face. Anders grit his teeth as he stood back up.

From the heap of Fenris's belongings, he produced the scrap of scarlet fabric. He'd recognized it immediately, and wound it now around and around his fingers, pulling it tight. He paced back and forth across the cave, then rolled the fabric into a tight ball. He went back to the glyph and knelt.

He dug his fingers into the soft flesh beneath Fenris's jaw, coaxing his mouth open. With two fingers Anders pushed the ball of fabric deep into the back of his throat. He secured it with a length of linen between the teeth, knotting it with a fierce jerk.

The Waking Sea crashed against the outer wall of the cavern. Anders rose. He collected the glass vials and sprinkled lyrium dust over the glyph. With the pads of his fingers he pressed dust into the silver looping pathways of Fenris's tattoos. He began to whisper, knowing well that the linen would not hold, should Fenris awaken.

He was leaning over Fenris when he caught sight of a white cloud of breath — Fenris's breath, escaping from his nostrils in a visible stream. To Anders, the world was steadily growing darker. He knew how he must be radiating cold, could see the goosebumps emerge on Fenris's flesh. He worked quickly, and stood over him at last, emitting a ghostly vapor that illuminated the room.

"To the Fade," Justice whispered, and Anders plunged into the frigid shadows.


	2. Chapter 2

Fenris was a child, running across a grassy courtyard. Another child ran with him, a pale redheaded girl who shrieked with laughter as they chased a ball that rolled through the grass. A young woman tended the flowers nearby, picking through scarlet carnations with bright heavy heads, and she glanced at them from time to time as she worked.

The girl shouted to him, calling him by a name that he did not recognize, and he raced to catch up with her, and all about were the sounds and smells of springtime, such sweetness that he could scarcely remember now.

He stooped to catch the ball. Movement from the manor wall surrounding the courtyard caught his eye. The young girl — his sister, yes, she must be, it seemed right to him and he did not question it — raced past and grabbed the ball. She was laughing and a door was opening at the manor wall, and Fenris stood transfixed in the grass.

A man emerged from the door and squinted in the sun. He was bearded and wore deep gray magister's robes, dark like storm clouds and heavily decorated. An elf followed him out and knelt beside him. Across his back hung a large greatsword, and a thick iron collar encircled his neck. He kept his eyes to the ground.

Another magister had entered the courtyard, but Fenris could only stare at the first man and his slave. He was scanning the courtyard, and his silver-flecked eyes came to rest on Fenris.

A thrill of dread ran through him.

Fenris recognized the second man as the master of the manor, his owner, a nervous, chattering slob who gesticulated wildly now, and though he spoke animatedly to his guest the other magister did not listen.

Fenris's master spotted the young woman tending to the garden, and he pointed at her, shouting out suddenly.

The woman — his mother, he knew now — widened her eyes and dropped her trowel. Their master crossed the courtyard, shouting in anger, and Fenris's mother dove into a bow and pressed her forehead to the grass, begging forgiveness.

His sister released the ball and hid her face in her little hands.

The bearded man smiled at him.

Fenris's master flung out his foot and kicked the young woman sharply, and she went sprawling into the grass. Savagely he admonished her and kicked her again, and she cried out, pleading.

Fenris could hear all of this, could see it transpire out of the corner of his eye. But to his great shame he could do nothing but return the bearded man's stare, as though trapped by those quicksilver eyes, the knowing smile.

All the while, his mother wept and begged, and his sister hid her face, as Fenris and Danarius gazed at one another for the very first time.

#

Hawke awoke in the backroom of the clinic. She rubbed her eyes and grimaced. She tested her throat with her fingertips, found the flesh still tender and swollen, and sat back, heaving a sigh.

"Anders?" she called out.

She awaited a response. When none came, she stretched and moved from the bed. She pushed aside the curtain and peered into the clinic proper.

"Anders?" she said again, but the clinic was dark and empty.

#

A deep voice echoed across the courtyard, as though woven into the very air.

"So you do remember this day, do you not?"

Fenris blinked.

It all dissolved — the grass, the flowers, the figures of his mother and sister, his master, and Danarius. He was a child no longer, but a man, sprawled on the crumbling flagstones of a dungeon floor, and the air was wrong somehow, heavy and noxious, the stone walls blurring and re-forming before his very eyes. Anders stood over him, and he knew at once that it was not Anders, just as he knew that this was no real dungeon, not in any physical sense.

"So you've come for me," Fenris said.

Anders's eyes were lanterns of chilling blue light. The air rang with biting cold.

"I've come to rectify your transgression," Justice said.

Fenris launched himself from the ground and tore at the spirit with his claws. A stab of bitter cold pierced the tendons in his ankles and he fell instead to the damp stone at Justice's feet. For an instant his legs were paralyzed, and the heavy air of the Fade smothered him.

"You shall regret your actions," Justice said, as the stone walls shuddered.

Fenris struggled to stand but could only lay gasping; the very environment had sent all of his senses into an uncomprehending frenzy, and he clutched at his head.

"By the Maker, stop this!" he shouted.

A sneer twisted Justice's face. He raised one hand and a heavy iron collar, identical to that of Danarius's bodyguard, materialized in his grip. He seized Fenris and clamped the collar around his neck, yanking a chain through the metal ring. He turned and jerked the chain sharply, pulling Fenris from the ground, and Fenris gagged, clutching the collar, as Justice dragged him across the flagstones.

"You will receive the same amount of mercy," Justice spat, "that you gave to her."

He yanked the chain again, and Fenris choked on a curse, kicking his feet. His fingers strained against the collar.

"You would defend a maleficar, then?" he cried out. "An abomination to your very cause, who dabbles in blood sorcery so freely?"

Shackles emerged from the decrepit wall, and Justice looped the chain through them, pulling it taut so that Fenris lurched from the floor by his neck, and there he dangled against the wall, his toes brushing the floor.

"You wild dog," Justice snarled. "You will not speak of her so."

He clenched the chain harder and snapped his arm back. Fenris's feet left the floor completely and the collar sliced into his neck, strangling him. Needles of pain riddled his chest and he gasped for breath, and couldn't find it, choking for air. All the while, Justice watched him and narrowed his luminous eyes as he held the chain steady.

Fenris struck the dungeon wall with his feet and tore at the collar. He writhed and his eyes watered, his throat scorched and scraped and raw.

Justice released the chain.

Fenris dropped unceremoniously to the floor, scraping his shoulders against rough stone. His chest heaved; he sucked in breath after breath, and his ribs felt cracked. He slumped against the wall, cupping his throat with his hand.

The chain was secured now to the wall, and Justice knelt over him, stripping the gauntlets from his arms. He fastened shackles to Fenris's wrists, bound them together with the chain, and he pulled the chain taut through the eyelet on the wall, so that Fenris's arms stretched over his head.

"I am confident that you recall this place all too well," Justice said.

And Fenris did — it was identical now to the dungeon that lay beneath Danarius's estate in Minrathous. The walls had shifted to slick basalt tiles, the floor a dizzying stone parquet. Empty cells of beautiful wrought iron lined the far wall.

Disgust tore through him and he scowled.

"Demon wretch," he said. "How dare you bring me to this place?"

"How dare you lay a hand on her?" Justice said, his voice dripping with venom.

He gestured around them, indicating realms beyond the room.

"Ah, but there is more than this," he said. "Far more. It was not difficult to shuffle through your memories like so many playing cards. You have many painful ones, yes, from your time in Minrathous."

Fenris sat back, rustling the chain. His voice wavered.

"You would not," he said.

And those terrible eyes gleamed, blistering in the dungeon dark.


	3. Chapter 3

A leather slipper struck Fenris on the chin, waking him suddenly, and, as he struggled up in the dry straw, the slipper came back down and smacked his cheek.

He raised his arms and cowered back.

She was already shouting at him, and drunk, stinking drunk.

"Stupid bumbling lazy whoreson!" the apprentice Hadriana screamed, nearly falling into the cell as she ambled toward him. She leaned hard on the doorway and flung the slipper at him. It sailed at a clumsy angle and bounced off his forearm.

"How dare you!" she cried, as though the near-miss had been his doing. She dragged him from the cell and kicked him in the ribs, screeching and spitting.

He knew better than to resist or question why. He covered his head with his arms and curled up on his side in an attempt to protect himself.

From the other cells, the dark, wide eyes of his fellow slaves turned to watch. The slave quarters had been outfitted from a decrepit horse stable that had gone long unused by the estate, and they all slept four to a cell on beds of itchy straw. Fenris was the only one with a cell of his own, and perhaps this was why they looked on with little pity as Hadriana attacked him night after night.

He was no stranger to beatings. When scolded for a mistake, he accepted the cuffs and slaps with a bowed head and sincere apology. At times they would beat him mercilessly, until his nose ran with blood and bruises darkened his back — but these punishments had a purpose, always there to correct an error that he made certain never to repeat. At times he would bow deeply to his masters and, stinging and smarting, thank them.

But Hadriana's outbursts had no purpose. She hounded him in the night much more frequently now, waking him with kicks and insults and vitriol, laying into him for the better part of the night, so that he dragged sleepily during the daytime and was much more prone to those mistakes that invoked his masters' displeasure.

"You drooling bloody knife-ear," she shrieked. "Uncover your face, you cur!"

He lowered his hands, and she kicked him then so fiercely that his lip split open and his mouth filled with blood.

"And what are you waiting for?" she demanded, as he spit blood on the floor. "Retrieve my shoe at once."

He crawled into the cell, wincing and shivering. He collected the slipper from the straw and hurried back, lifting it to her with supplicant hands.

She snatched it up and slapped it against his head, and when he cowered she spit upon him.

"You will know your place," she screamed. "Maker, how it sickens me to see you floating about with your smug illusions of superiority — just because you are Danarius's little pet! You think you are better than the rest of us, you flea-bitten dog?" And she slapped him again. "I am apprenticed to the magister!" she crowed. "You belong to me as much as you belong to him! And I will be damned if you forget it."

She seized him by the hair and yanked him up so that they were eye-to-eye.

"Now apologize to me," she said, her voice growing sweet and soft. "Beg my forgiveness for forgetting yourself so."

Blood rolled down his chin when he parted his lips. "I beg your forgiveness," he whispered.

She smiled girlishly. "I did not hear you," she cooed, and her breath reeked with hot wine.

"I am sorry, mistress," he said, "for transgressing you so."

"And?"

"And though I am undeserving," he stammered, as fury crept through him, "I implore you, please forgive me."

He inhaled sharply and spat blood across her robes.

Violently she flinched back, as though he had struck her, and stared down at the spatter of blood on her breast. Her face contorted into a savage sneer, and her eyes gleamed murderous and fierce.

"You great shitting long-eared fucker!" she howled, raising her arm, and without thinking he snatched her wrist and twisted it.

Her eyes widened. Heat rushed through him in wave after feverous wave, his markings flared agonizing silver, and there was raw fear in those eyes, yes, pale blue watery eyes framed by wild tallow-smoke hair, and the scars that lined her arm flattened and stretched as he pulled. A wild thought flashed through his brain, one so mad and untenable that for an instant he questioned his own sanity: he could kill her now, reach through her breast as though it were nothing and crush her heart between his fingers, and, oh, how easy that would be.

He released her then, horrified.

She lashed out, kicking him in the gut, and he dropped, clutching himself round the middle. She produced a serrated steel pin from her hair and sliced open the meat of her palm. Blood ran over the scars on her arm and she seized Fenris's wrist, uttering a string of cryptic words.

A scarlet palm print remained when she let him go.

And suddenly his fingers were twitching, curling painfully into a stiff claw, his muscles snapping tight, contracting, taut. He howled and his entire hand began to twist, the tendons stretched tight as bow-strings, and he crumpled over in agony.

Hadriana was silent, with wild eyes.

The other slaves looked away, rolling over in their straw beds.

With a final lurch his hand veered at an impossible angle, and the bones in his wrist snapped with a sickening, crackling volley, and a high keening wrenched from deep within him, shocking him in its unfamiliarity, and he collapsed back into the cell, and he writhed, as Hadriana giggled and departed from the stable.

#

Hawke stood in the entrance of Fenris's abandoned Hightown manor.

She peered into the foyer, searching for movement. The lamps were dark and cold, had not been lit for hours. She crossed the atrium tentatively and climbed upstairs to the sitting room.

The empty wine bottles were still there, lying on their sides, and jagged glass shards littered the floor in a wreath around the trestle table. She swept past it with scarcely a glance.

Her heart began to pound only when she approached the bedchamber. She instinctively brushed the bandages at her throat and found the memory of it still fresh, the armored joints of those claws slicing into her neck.

She was not new to pain or menace. No mage was, after all, to say nothing of her flight from Lothering. But to think that someone she'd once entrusted with her life, who'd fought by her side in the Deep Roads and called her friend — to think that he would have done this, had driven her to the lengths she'd taken in order to escape him . . .

What she feared most was that she would find him there, lying still on the bed, as she had left him.

She touched the bedchamber door. She sucked in her breath and pushed it open.

The bed was empty. She wavered and went to it. The silk comforter bunched at the edge of the mattress, had been tossed violently about, and she saw him there again, twitching and shaking and staring back at her.

She felt again the crush of his hands, the hatred and hunger in his eyes, the ugly piercing pain as he entered her, and then the points of his claws running down the scars on her thighs, as though imitating their creation. She heard his pointed question: "And so it was not Justice that gave these to you?"

No, she wished she had said, had said anything at all. No, it was not.


	4. Chapter 4

Justice watched closely as Fenris shivered in his chains, shuddering back from invisible blows, and the iron links rattled against the dungeon wall, and gouts of sweat tapped like glass beads against the stone.

#

Fenris stood alone in the dark carpeted hall beyond his master's door.

His heart thudded. He glanced down the hallway as though awaiting instruction. All was silent save for a distant clock chiming the hour. It was late, very late, and normally at this time he would be drifting into an uneasy sleep within in his cell. But on this night he had been sent for, called upon by his new master.

He waited until the door glided open on well-oiled hinges. Danarius's silent bodyguard filled the doorway.

Fenris had seen him frequently, always at his master's side. He was a formidable-looking man, heavy-set for an elf, his skin coarse and ruddy, but there was something feminine about his face, and there was emptiness in his black eyes. He moved back into the room and swept out his arm, inviting Fenris inside.

"Thank you, Lucan," came Danarius's voice from within the room.

Fenris dropped to his knee and bowed deeply, staring at the floor.

"You may come in, Fenris," Danarius called out with a chuckle.

"Yes, my master," Fenris said, and he rose, and, with his eyes to the floor, went past the bodyguard and entered the room. The slave Lucan shut the door behind him.

Danarius's bedchamber was formidable and vast. A plush carpet, the color of arterial blood, muted Fenris's footsteps. Danarius was seated at an elaborately-carved writing table, from which he glanced only briefly. Fenris waited obediently in the center of the room. The vaulted ceiling dwarfed him, and was lined with stained glass of startling crystal white and ruby red. Bookshelves, crowded with thick ancient tomes of leather and vellum, covered every wall. The writing table was a basalt slab fitted with regal looping hardware that shimmered like silver vines. The resemblance to his freshly-hewn tattoos was not lost on him.

The markings still ached and his flesh had only just begun to scab. Often he awoke in agony during the night, the walls of his cell alit with white-hot light, and the other slaves would crowd away, holding one another in fear.

Danarius lowered his quill. Lucan remained by the door. Fenris could feel his presence, the powerful stare of his empty eyes.

"I presume you are adjusting?" Danarius said, rolling the sheet of vellum into a tight scroll.

Fenris did not lift his gaze. "I am, my master."

"They are still painful?" he asked lightly, sliding a ribbon over the scroll.

"Yes, my master."

"Ah. And they will be always, most assuredly." Fenris could hear the smile in his voice. "But you are strong, Fenris. I have great confidence in you."

The compliment embarrassed him, and he could not bring himself to respond.

Danarius sat back. "No word of thanks, Fenris?" he said, amused.

"I thank you, my master," Fenris mumbled. "Though I am undeserving of your praise."

Danarius was silent for some time, and Fenris risked a glance. Danarius studied him, his eyes following the silver patterns etched into his skin. Their eyes met and Fenris looked away, shamed by his own callousness.

Danarius rose from the desk and leisurely crossed the room. He went to Fenris and circled him slowly, observing him, and Fenris kept his head bowed, his flesh prickling.

"We still must talk of Petra," Danarius said.

Fenris did not speak at first. Then, "Master."

"Yes, Fenris?"

"I beg your forgiveness," he stammered. His throat throbbed and he closed his eyes. "My heart — swells with regret. I am in anguish over the matter."

Danarius said nothing. Fenris shifted anxiously. He could feel Lucan's eyes on the back of his head.

"Master," he said.

"Speak, Fenris."

"The others. The other slaves. They are frightened of me."

Danarius laughed softly. "Ah. Good. That is very good. As they should be."

He reached out then and touched Fenris's face.

Fenris's skin bristled and the sensation cascaded in a wave to the floor. Danarius's fingers ran over the markings on his chin, moving delicately, and the flesh was raised there, still painful to the touch, so that it took great effort for Fenris not to cringe away.

"I must see them again," Danarius murmured.

His hand moved to Fenris's chest, parting the folds of his tunic.

Fenris paused uncertainly. Danarius's long fingers brushed along his markings, following their loops and curls.

"I will not repeat myself," Danarius said.

Fenris lowered his head. He undid the clasps of his tunic and slid it from his shoulders. The tracks of fresh tattoos on his skin tingled, and this time he did cringe, when Danarius rested his palm against the elaborate designs over his heart.

"All of it," he said.

Fenris bowed his head once more. "Yes, my master," he said.

His fingers shook as he unlaced his trousers. He could not explain the flush of shame that overcame him and made him waver beneath Danarius's gaze. Surely it should please him to do his master's bidding. And yet the swooping lines in his flesh were still raw, the presence of those needles, razor-sharp and fine as hairs, that had pricked him and run beneath the skin, was still with him, the memory only days old. And before that memory, there was nothing. Nothing else beyond a blank void that stretched into the reaches of his mind.

He stepped out of his trousers and stood naked before them. Danarius gave the faintest intake of breath.

"Lucan," he said. "Leave us."

The bedchamber door clicked open quietly and closed again.

"Now, Fenris. I assure you that the — unfortunate business with Petra is over and done with. All is forgiven."

He strolled around Fenris again, observing the lyrium framework in full.

"You must not worry yourself so much. In fact, your handiwork was most impressive. It speaks well to the success of our little experiment." He gave a satisfied nod. "We shall teach you to use the lyrium, train you to master it. You have a purpose here, Fenris. Lucan will not be my bodyguard forever. Though I love him dearly, he is growing old." He paused before Fenris. "Ah, but you are beautiful," he said.

Fenris closed his eyes.

"Do not be so ashamed," Danarius said. "You must learn to receive compliments gracefully. It is quite an honor for any slave to serve this estate. And I have chosen you personally. You were wasted on your previous master, wilting in that dank manor like a flower. Did you know he had you fetching water and scrubbing floors?" He shook his head and tutted at the senselessness of it. "Such a shame."

He reached out again and cupped Fenris's chin. "Look at me, now," he said.

Fenris opened his eyes. A quiet dread brewed in the pit of his stomach, due entirely to the hold of those eyes. Danarius's eyes never failed, with an almost mystical quality, to trap anyone in their gaze. They gleamed like precious metals with so captivating an intensity that Fenris, like many others, suspected the enhancement of lyrium.

"I chose you," Danarius said. "I knew, from the moment I first saw you, that you would be mine. That I had to have you. And now, here you are."

He clenched his hands around Fenris's jaw and caressed his cheekbones with both thumbs.

"These markings are quite special. You are . . . wholly unique, now. And they forever distinguish you as mine, far better than any chattel brand." His voice dropped then, lower, and softer. "Oh, how you howled during the ritual. How you cried and begged me to stop. I am certain that you recall it quite well, how many of us it took to hold you down, in spite of your bindings. How savagely you fought, like a wolf caught in a trap." He inhaled sharply, as though catching his breath. "And then. Poor little Petra."

Fenris's heart was pounding.

Danarius smirked. "It is all of these things, and more to come, that shall benefit you, little Fenris. Determination and savagery: together they heat your blood and quicken your heart. Yes. You shall do very well here."

Danarius released him and stepped back.

"Kneel, Fenris," he said.

Fenris sank to the floor.

"Tell me, Fenris. Do you love me?"

"I do, my master," Fenris said, and meant it, because this man, this powerful and dangerous man, was his master, and therefore he loved him.

Danarius extended his hand, offering the tips of his perfectly-manicured fingers. "Kiss me," he said.

Fenris leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Danarius's hand, lingering over the white, hairless knuckle. The magister's skin smelled of fire and spices, of smoldering cedar and scarlet carnations, rich and heady, and somewhere among them all mingled the unmistakable bouquet of sex.

He saw the bed behind Danarius, the rumpled unmade sheets spilling scarlet to the floor, and saw then in his mind the empty black stare of Lucan, without knowing why.

"Fenris," Danarius said lowly. "You are. Beautiful. Yes."

He stroked Fenris's lower lip.

"Lovely," he breathed.

His fingernails traced a line down to Fenris's chin, and ran along his jawline.

"Fenris," he said, in a near-whisper. "Open my robes."

Fenris stared at him, and those silver eyes pierced him, seemed to run him through. A sudden fear seized him, so shocked was he by the raw lust that smoldered there, and the dawning realization of what was to come from this, here in his new master's house.

He tugged loose the knot of Danarius's sash. A muted roar, like the sea, filled his head. Danarius's fingers had slipped behind his ear, were working the flesh there.

Fenris pushed back the folds of the charcoal surcoat, revealing the dark red robe underneath. He clumsily undid the line of hooks, took a deep breath, and parted the robe.

Danarius clenched the base of Fenris's neck and shoved him forward, so that his hardened length plunged into Fenris's mouth, and pushed, deeper and deeper, to the back of his throat, as Fenris gagged.

Fenris writhed and braced his hands against Danarius without thinking, and Danarius held him steady, his fingers digging into Fenris's skull, as he slid farther into his mouth.

"Breathe," he cooed, as Fenris choked and shivered. "Breathe."

Fenris's eyes pricked with tears. He pushed against Danarius and shuddered again. At last he forced himself to relax, to release the tension that strung together the muscles in his neck, and forced air through his nostrils, breathing in deeply, so that the back of his throat seemed to open up, and he no longer felt as though he were suffocating.

Danarius released a long, shaking breath.

Fenris squeezed his eyes shut. Saliva dribbled from his clenched lips and rolled down his chin. Danarius slid over his tongue, easing out, pushing back in, and his fingers brushed through Fenris's hair, caressing it, combing it back. Fenris was acutely aware then of the silence in the room, save for the wet gentle sucking sounds, and Danarius's heavy breathing, which grew steadily heavier.

Danarius whispered words of encouragement, and touched Fenris tenderly with the tips of his fingers, showing such gentleness that Fenris had never known, and when Fenris gagged again he hated himself for doing so, for risking anything that would betray this man and his kindness.

Danarius instructed him then, and Fenris, struggling to steady his breathing, did as he was told, gripping with his lips, caressing with his tongue. His jaw ached, and Danarius pushed deeper, hunching over Fenris and forcing the palm of his hand against Fenris's scalp, so that Fenris choked again, and tried to struggle back.

"Fenris," Danarius whispered. "Ah, Fenris. You are doing well."

The minutes seemed to stretch on. Danarius gasped, and moaned softly. Fenris clung to his master's robes, twisting the plush fabric. He felt as though he were drowning, and gagged again suddenly, and his markings glimmered then, flickering to life as he shoved away, disentangling himself from Danarius's robes, and Danarius staggered and released him with a surprised gasp. Fenris fell, panting, "I can't, I cannot."

Danarius seemed, at once, uncharacteristically dazed.

Fenris was overwhelmed by the desire to hide his face in shame, to turn away, to vanish.

The two of them remained as such while the light from Fenris's markings slowly died.

"Fenris," Danarius said, regaining his composure. He smoothed his robes.

Fenris could scarcely meet his eyes, could say nothing in return.

Danarius snapped his fingers then, loud and sharp, and turned to the bed, and wordlessly he went to it. Fenris watched him go, still catching his breath, and rose unsteadily to his feet. He followed.

For the rest of the night Danarius explored him, in much the same manner as the night that Fenris awoke to those needles in his flesh, the probing press of hands and fingers, though this time he did not fight back, electing to surrender himself fully. And though he knew he must please Danarius, for to a slave there is no higher honor, he found himself distracted, even as he lay heaving on the scarlet sheets and blinking sweat from his eyes. He pressed his face to the mattress, shuddering when Danarius's hands slid over his buttocks, gritting his teeth when Danarius entered him, and stifling his cries as Danarius fucked him, and his thoughts wandered again to the slave Lucan, picturing him among these sheets, trapped as he was now, and wondered if tonight Lucan slept on a straw bed, locked away in the stable now with the rest of them.

And for the rest of his days, Fenris would not forget this night, the exquisite agony of Danarius's invasion, the curious shame of Lucan's expendability, and the aching desperate love that he felt for this cruel man, his master, and remnants of this love would return to him long after he had escaped Minrathous, often during the lonely sleepless hours of night, and hound him with a self-loathing that seemed to wrack his very bones.

And Justice, with his luminous spectral gaze, was smiling.


	5. Chapter 5

Hawke wandered and paced the chambers of the manor, inspecting for signs of struggle, remnants of magic, and, when she had at last concluded that Anders had not come, she sought evidence of Fenris's destination, but in the dusty unused chambers there was nothing, only ancient shadows and dilapidated furniture.

The only thing of which she could be truly certain was that she was running out of time.

#

"Is it possible, I wonder," Justice mused, among the wrought iron cells of the Minrathous dungeon, "for one to die from the memories through which one has already lived?"

Fenris was slowly coming to in his fetters. Sweat slickened his face, the palms of his hands. His mouth tasted of sick.

Justice came forward and Fenris flinched away. The chains rattled against one another.

"And you have suffered worse yet," Justice said.

Fenris tore to his feet. The collar yanked his throat, though he did not heed the pain. His fists in their irons clenched so tightly that his fingernails nearly drew blood. The tendons in his arms strained, stretched as they were above his head.

He fought his bindings like a terrified animal: savage, wild-eyed, with no thought to the cold links that bit his flesh, the echoing howls of his own voice, and he was prepared to rip the chains from the very wall, no matter how they may rend his body, smash his bones to paste, if only to escape what he knew was to come next.

"I will not go back to that place, I will not!" he screamed.

"I do not deal in mercy," Justice said.

"Wretched demon, you are no better than they, those specters that you force upon me." He gnashed his teeth, overcome now by the shadows of his past; over the years he'd been able to bury them, haunted only by their faintest echoes. To relive them now, to hear again the sick snapping of his own bones, to feel Danarius's touch, was almost enough to undo him completely.

"Do you derive some sick pleasure in torturing me?" he cried.

Justice's face relaxed, icy and solemn. "You ask this," he said, "after delighting in her torment?"

Fenris gave a final lurch against the chains, and his markings pulsed so bright that their incandescence engulfed him, a silver shade bound to the dungeon wall, and with a thunderous splintering crack the shackles tore from the stone. Shards of stone clattered down, and the chain followed, striking the floor with an echoing clamor.

The silver light died and Fenris slumped over, heaving. Lashings of blood dripped from his arms; the hateful collar leashed him still.

"You speak," he muttered, and his words were strained, "as though I have not seen what you've done."

Justice's eyebrows lifted with feigned curiosity.

Fenris touched the lacerations at his wrist, the ruddy raw flesh that bled, and thought of Hawke's slender arm, the multitude of scars that he had found so ugly, and hated suddenly the beauty of the markings on his own arm, those that wound the lengths of his limbs like the silver ivy wreathing Danarius's furniture.

"You are as guilty as I," he rasped, and could make no sense now of the ache in his throat at the lingering thought of that scarred white arm.

#

From the dry stores of the manor, Hawke gathered sprigs of deathroot, distillations of foxite, extract of heatherum. She mixed them with the faintest pinch of lyrium and ground them together, pressing the soft mash into a pellet. This she chewed as she climbed the stairs to the bedchamber.

She went to the bed, swallowing the last of the pellet. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, to ease the fluttering in the pit of her stomach. She sat upon the mattress and sank into its downy softness.

The sleeping drug had already begun to take hold, and she found herself blinking hard in order to concentrate. In her mind she focused on their faces: first Anders and then Fenris, though it was difficult not to picture them as she had last seen them, sweet Anders so wracked with anguish, and Fenris's wide-eyed accusatory stare. And after a moment's thought she concentrated on Justice as well, for though he and Anders were one in the same, she did not choose to accept this, had never truly accepted it.

She drew the dagger from her belt. The blade shook as she whispered a spell that had not left her lips in some time.

She moved farther back onto the mattress. Her surroundings were beginning to fade and dip into shadow. She took a long breath and drew her robes up around her waist.

The claw marks on her legs cooled in the night air, ten lines of knotted flesh that ached now as though they were new.

#

"Are you so delirious now that you spout nonsense?" Justice said.

"I have seen the marks on her body," Fenris said. "The scars that no dagger could have made."

Justice's eyes flashed. The dungeon air plunged into freezing cold, and Fenris's breath streamed white as he heaved on the floor.

"You know nothing," Justice growled, "of what you speak."

"I know how easily you lose control," Fenris shot back. "The volatility of your emotions, how Anders is too weak to conceal you. And I know well the perverse desires that demons harbor for the flesh."

"I am no demon," Justice roared, and in a storm of blue he lunged and seized Fenris by the throat.

Needles of cold pierced him, they splintered into his brain, and Fenris lashed in Justice's grip, and his chains struck the floor, the wall, ringing like bells.

"How can you claim to love her," he said, "and sit in judgement of me, when you have wounded her so and rent her flesh, yourself?"

"I have brought no harm to her," Justice snarled. "Never — not once — have I touched her."

"You lie," Fenris said.

Justice slammed him against the wall. Fenris's head struck the stone and he reeled. Bursts of light jarred his vision.

Justice knelt over him and released his throat, pulling him forward by the collar.

"Do not claim to know anything of the trials that she has suffered," he said.

Fenris stared at him and saw, for just an instant, something like grief flicker across his face.

#

Hawke's consciousness was rapidly fading. She splayed her fingers, going over the scars on her thighs, one by one, trying to detect that which ran the thinnest, the one least used.

At last she selected one on her inner thigh. She sucked in her breath and, shaking, brought the dagger to her leg.

"I need you," she whispered, her eyes shut tight. "Please. Help me."

The dagger flickered into her thigh, and the flesh parted and opened there, bathing her in warm wetness. The drug claimed her then and she collapsed against the bed, and a long, low, deep voice echoed from the edges of some distance, in answer to her call.


	6. Chapter 6

Fenris's eyes fluttered, and there was only darkness, cold and empty.

He'd been carried into this room, yes, it must have been days ago, but his addled mind could only grasp at impressions, and he could not recall who had, or why. Slowly he worked his mouth, and his tongue cleaved to his teeth, dry as paper.

He was blind, he realized. He blinked hard, as though he could summon back his sight. He was utterly blind, and in this darkness he could remember absolutely nothing.

#

The pain was carving knives, it was barbs that skewered and scorching flame.

Fenris writhed in his bed as it all returned in a thundering wave.

He'd been locked in a room at his new master's estate, left to thrash and wail as his markings healed, fresh and still bleeding.

He spent days in delusion, pursued by visions of spitting demons, and he cowered against the headboard of his sickbed for hours, hiding his face so they would not find him.

He sobbed like a child for his mother, or some approximation of one, for he had not an inkling of his own, it had all been obliterated in the birth of these markings and he knew this, was certain of it, and he howled in agony over the gift that had been forced upon him.

And, during the last few days of his recuperation, he lay catatonic upon the bed, staring blankly at the wall. Every so often his markings would flicker, gleam briefly to life, and his body would give an involuntary jerk in response.

On the final day, he rose shakily from the bed.

The door was opening. He knew it must be Petra, the kind serving girl who looked after the little room, who wiped his face with cool cloths and changed the sweat-soaked linens. He swung his head to look for her, and his vision was blurred, he could focus on nothing but vague shapes, his mind clouded with fever.

He reached out and his hand ignited with silver light.

A jolt shook him. It was as though his fingers were engulfed in flame — smoldering, scorching, he could almost smell the burning flesh. He stumbled forth, could only stare in numbing horror. He clutched his elbow with his other hand, as though deliriously offering the conflagration.

Petra had moved from the door, was coming toward him.

He reached out to her, and, oh, his hand burned, the pain blinded him, and it was as though he had lost all reason, did not know why he reached for her so.

Her face had come into focus now, had emerged from the murk now that she was so close, and he saw in her eyes a growing realization, a slow onset of fear that had not warned her soon enough.

His silver hand touched her face.

His fingers did not meet skin, no, they did not meet hair or scalp or bone. They ghosted through her flesh as though it were air, as though she were an illusion. His palm vanished now into her temple, his fingertips pointing somewhere deep within her brain.

Her lips moved, as though she meant to speak, and the conflagration extinguished.

Blood then, so much blood, and the sucking sound of her cleaving skull, the soft wetness of gore that weighed down his hand. She was falling, staring at him with a single intact eye. The other was lost now in the ruined mass, a dripping stew of contorted meat and shards of bone.

She crumpled to the floor, and a slippery mash of tissue dropped from his hand.

He was paralyzed then, in the silence that followed. His arm was painted red to the elbow. He began to shiver, unable to stop the tremors that washed over him. He was gasping, and choked out some word that could have been her name, over and over. And then at last he began to scream, screaming for anyone to come find him, screaming for help.

#

"I need you. Please. Help me."

The atmosphere of the Fade pressed close, it was sensation and breathlessness, and at the same time stretched wide like a cavern, where secret things lay hidden.

Hawke lolled on a cold dripping boulder, scarcely able to lift her head. Her surroundings were slow to solidify, and became vesicular rock and clustering niter. Stalactites reached like claw-tipped fingers. The yawning chasm stretched behind her for miles, and in its depths gleamed concealed veins of raw lyrium.

Her voice echoed, and seemed small, and her words were muffled, as though smothered by the air of this place.

"Please," she called out again, as the heat slowly left her.

She blinked hard, though her eyes would not focus. She bunched her robes, she pulled the fabric taut between her fingers. The pain in her leg throbbed. It was much worse than she'd thought, worse than she remembered, although it had been many years since that last time.

She knew he would find her in this place. She knew that he was waiting, was likely watching her now. She had only to wait, as the blood seeped from her leg, soaking the sheets in the bedchamber of the abandoned manor.

#

Justice held Fenris to the wall, he ground him into the stone as the elf's eyes rolled back, and Fenris was elsewhere, years away, his mouth stretched open in a silent wail, and he groped the air as though he reached for someone, wandering in the dark, as though begging for their forgiveness.

#

Fenris lay supine on a basalt slab.

Walls of wrought iron enclosed him on all sides, their patterns looping, curling, exquisite.

His heart pounded in his chest, his head, his throat.

The magisters were coming.

Obediently he lay still, waiting for them, naked and unfettered on the slab.

#

Hawke turned her head in the direction of his voice. It came to her in a low rumble, as though vibrating from the rock, a scarcely discernible quake in the whole of the cavern. Her head dipped back, for she could hold it upright no longer, and he was there with her then, he had reached out and caught her, and her skull rested against his massive palm.

Long claws curled behind her head and moved through her hair.

#

They came with rolls of felt, jars of poultices and lengths of braided cord.

Danarius uttered words of preparation at the foot of the slab, his ethereal eyes shut fast.

The others laid out their supplies, unpacking cylinders of lyrium and dishes of ebony and bone. A pair of them circled Fenris in a slow march, sketching a glyph in the stone.

He glanced at the long table that ran the length of the cell. One of the magisters unrolled the thick, dark felt. A set of needles lay within, long and shining, each thinner and more wicked-looking than the last.

#

He spoke to her in long rumbling tones, a hum at some deeper register incomprehensible to human ears, though she understood him perfectly, attuned as she was to this place.

He cradled her head as though she were made of glass.

"Help me find them," she said. Her voice had dropped now to a whisper.

The air hummed, and the rocks trembled faintly.

"I know they are here in the Fade," she said. "They must be."

His claws, thick and barbed, brushed the hair from her eyes.

"Yes," she said. "I must. If I do not . . ."

He waited patiently, for he knew how weak she must be, knew well how much blood she had lost, was still losing.

"If I do not," she managed at last, "he will die."

He spoke then, and she listened intently. She paused for some time before answering.

"No," she said slowly. "But I cannot let Anders do this, and be tormented with regret for the rest of his life."

He considered this. With his other hand he snapped his fingers and offered her something. She turned her head to see.

He held out a tiny wooden horse, inexpertly carved, dwarfed between his massive thumb and index finger.

She opened her hand and he dropped it into her palm. He eased her fingers closed. The ground beneath them quaked, and Hawke bowed her head.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."

His finger pressed against the open wound on her thigh, and she cringed.

"Take me to them," she gasped.

When he lifted his finger again, the flesh had knitted closed, and bled no more.


	7. Chapter 7

Fenris shook against the dungeon wall, he grasped at Justice's robes and mouthed silent words, he wheezed and grasped and shook his head no, no, no.

#

They mixed ink in the ebony bowls, jet black on black, and distributed the cylinders of lyrium amongst themselves. Danarius's hands moved as he spoke the cryptic invocation, gliding over Fenris, tracing over the glyph, and his words were hushed and prayer-like.

The magisters had divided up the lengths of cord, and surrounded him now, and with these they bound him to the slab, eight precise knots to eliminate movement completely, two at his wrists, two at his ankles, four at the joints of his arms and legs. They cleansed him with warm cloths soaked in astringent herbs. When Danarius opened his eyes at last, a magister handed him one of the long, shining needles.

The point of the needle dripped black like the caustic tip of an assassin's dart.

#

With their faces held firmly in her mind, Hawke pointed the way. He carried her as he went, and moved smoothly through the Fade as though he'd known all along where to go, following her lead like a glittering thread.

#

They began at his chest, and the needle slid smoothly into the flesh above his sternum.

He was too stunned at first to utter a sound.

His body reacted, jerking up from the slab, and four of the magisters hurriedly pressed him down. Danarius, anticipating this, held the needle steady. With a smooth stone disc he rapped the end of the needle, pricking Fenris's skin precisely and repeatedly. The magisters remained gripping his shoulders and his legs, forcing him to lie flat as he twitched and shook.

When Danarius removed the needle to bend over the long table, as he dipped it into one of the bowls and the dripping ink seemed to gleam of its own accord, the pain in Fenris's chest continued to seethe, sharpening with burning acuity. It was the taint of lyrium, he knew, the fine glittering dust so dangerous to consume, mixed now in the jet black pigment. It smoldered there at the injection site, and when Danarius returned his body jerked again, and he stuttered protests, regrets, pleas.

Danarius smoothed Fenris's forehead, as though to comfort him, despite the light behind his silver eyes, the familiar predatory smile.

The needle slipped into his flesh again, and he whimpered. The stone disc struck its mark. The lyrium seethed beneath his skin. It was bubbling heat and merciless agony.

#

Fenris was cowering, he was twitching, he was seizing against the wall, and Justice could not hold him steady even if he wanted to.

#

Fenris could smell it, the dust-fine particles of lyrium that boiled beneath his skin. He could smell every dermal cell that roasted and died as it blackened beneath the relentless needle. He opened and closed his mouth like a dying fish, like a drowning man gasping for air.

Danarius followed neither pattern nor design, as though his hand merely drifted where the needle wished. He worked with intense fervor, his eyes lowered and sharply focused, and he mumbled strange words that Fenris did not understand. He handed his needle to a waiting magister, exchanging it for a fresh one, and the magister dropped the used needles into a shallow plate, which grew speckled with blood and pigment.

Hours had passed, were still passing. Fenris began to scream when the needle pricked his side — oh, the misery of it, as though the hair-fine point had penetrated each layer of flesh until it hit bone, striking his rib and sticking there, injecting his very bones with the scorching ink. He realized now that he was weeping, hot tears gushing from his eyes as thoughtlessly as sweat, and he begged, how pitifully he begged to be released from this place.

There was no comforting touch from Danarius now, neither a caress nor a pitying smile. There was only the jab of the needle, and the lyrium blistering in his skin.

#

Fenris was whispering a name. Justice could not understand him, so fierce were the tremors that shook him senseless. But Fenris was repeating it now, over and over, a single syllable quivering from his throat, and Justice drew back when he realized what the wretched elf was saying.

Hawke.

#

"Please, no, oh, please, no . . ."

They did not hear him, they would not listen, they held him down when he fought, he did not care if they killed him now, if only to stop the march of that needle, quell the burning.

"Oh please oh Maker oh stop please stop . . ."

I shall bite off my tongue, he thought, his mind a conflagration, his thoughts like scattering flames. I shall bite off my tongue and swallow it, and then I shall die.

"Oh Maker, oh mother, please . . . please . . ."

Pathways were carving into his flesh, long and sinuous, slicing deep, they quartered his bones, filleted his organs. He was choking, hyperventilating, he was going into shock.

"Please . . ."

The black lines in his chest began to flicker.

#

Hawke heard his voice, heard her name echo through the Fade. The vibrations reached her and she did not believe it at first, did not trust her senses in this shadowy realm. But she recognized it, yes, it had to be him.

Fenris was calling for her.


	8. Chapter 8

Justice backed away from Fenris. The chill in the air had begun to fade. The blue light that netted him flickered once and startled him.

His surroundings grew suddenly hazy.

"No," he said, then, as the blue light flared once more, he roared, "No, I command you! I will be the one to finish this!"

But the Fade was blurring, rearranging, and Fenris with it, and Justice collapsed to the ground, bleeding through the dungeon floor.

#

Gasping, Anders awoke in the cavern by the Waking Sea.

He sat up with a jerk, and winced at the crick in his neck. His muscles ached from what must have been hours spent on the sandy floor. Beside him, limp against the makeshift glyph, lay Fenris, bound still by the linen wraps.

Anders stared at him, his mind working quickly, combing through the familiar fog that always drugged him when his body became his own. He'd driven Justice back, a rare victory. Fenris twitched faintly, eyelashes fluttering as though he merely slept. Saliva coated his lips, had bubbled from the linen gag along the line of his jaw. Sweat matted the hair to his forehead in flat strips.

Anders's heart raced. He heard again the faint whisper, his beloved's name wrapped in the tones of that vile voice. He knew that he could not give himself time to think.

He fumbled through the spare rolls of linen, and his hand closed around a smooth bone handle. He slid a small knife free from the scraps. His eyes focused now on the throbbing muscles of Fenris's neck as he brought the knife around.

#

Fingers crowded into his mouth, and Fenris bit down and tasted blood.

They had known, as though they had read his thoughts, as though they had heard the shallow splitting of his tongue, and they packed his jaw with wadded fabric, balled thick so he would not swallow it, could not even choke on his own blood like he so wished.

The poultices they spread on their own hands to soothe the bites, leaving Fenris's wounds to sizzle.

And on Danarius worked, never sparing a glance, and needles crowded the shallow dish, bathing in ink and blood.

#

Hawke reached out. She could see it now, like a ripping seam in the fabric of the Fade. Her fingers stretched, and he lifted her toward it, she was flying, weightless, she could hear Fenris still, his voice grew louder.

Her fingers touched the seam, and it was as though rushing water thundered over her, cold and piercing, stealing her away.

#

The rumpled bed lay empty in the abandoned manor, its silk sheets pooled in slowly congealing blood.

#

Anders approached Fenris, the silent bound form. The pulse in his thumb pounded against the bone handle. It seemed to reverberate against the very walls, drowning out the roar of the sea.

#

Fenris shivered against the slab, his body smeared with blood, and light was building, white light and lyrium-blue. It bloomed from his limbs and filled the room.

The markings flashed, ignited, and they blistered white-hot, they burned him as though he were bound in searing barbed wire, constricting now, severing him, cutting him to pieces.

His thoughts garbled and blurred into gibberish. Suddenly there was only blankness, and he was no longer a person, no, he had no agency, no language, no thoughts or intelligence at all. There was only this agony, this separation, this obliteration of himself.

#

Fenris lay unmoving in the Minrathous dungeon, slumped against the wall where Justice had left him. In his eyes there was only great unseeing distance and clouded fog.

#

Hawke collapsed onto packed sand. There was rushing water now, real water, and the tang of salt stung her nostrils. She staggered to her feet — for there was no time for wondering now — and limped forward. She grit her teeth, and trusted in him, in this place that he had left her, as real now as the stabbing pain in her thigh.

She reached out to steady herself against the cragged lip of a cave.

#

Anders pulled Fenris's head back, stretching smooth the twitching flesh of his neck.

#

"Fenris!"

#

Stretched out on Danarius's stone slab, Fenris heard it.

Limp against the dungeon wall and dripping in chains, Fenris heard it.

Bound and gagged on the sandy glyph in the hollows of the Wounded Coast, Fenris heard it.

Her voice ringing clear, the tones of a bell, the call of a bird.

Speaking his name.

"Fenris, wake up!"

#

And the blade in Anders's hand slashed deep, it severed Fenris's throat, the flesh opening, it was layers of white fat and red meat and gouts of blood.

When Anders turned, he saw her standing there.


	9. Chapter 9

"Marian," Anders said, it was Anders, not Justice, who knelt on the ground, who held the knife, whose arm now dripped with Fenris's blood.

Hawke's mouth stretched open. She took it all in, the carefully-drawn glyph, the bindings at Fenris's wrists and ankles, the blindfold, the gag, the crimson spring of Fenris's throat. She might have screamed. She might be reeling forth even now toward the both of them, her steps unsteady, spasmodic.

Pure horror had dawned on Anders's face. "Marian, my love —"

She was aware then of her own staggering gait, the pallor of her face, the dried blood that caked her skirts, her leg, and Anders's eyes flicked down, alighting on the source of her injury.

"My love, my beloved —"

He was talking, babbling. He dropped Fenris and reached out to her, forgetting that he still held the knife.

She stumbled past him and sagged to the ground, driving her hands into Fenris's throat to close the wound.

Anders groped her shoulders, the knife was gone, and she shoved him away, holding fast to the gaping wound, her fingers coloring, her little hands scarlet now. He tried again, cupped her cheek, grasped her waist, and she shouted then, her voice echoing and harsh and strident.

"Leave! You will leave us — now!"

He lurched back, stunned.

She began to whisper, drawing upon her waning strength, but she had lost so much blood, she was dizzy, her magic would not take.

She heard Anders take a step toward her.

"Surely you cannot —"

"Leave us!" she cried.

"Marian —"

"Maker, Anders, if you so much as take another step, you shall regret it."

He said nothing, and neither he did he move. "I don't understand," he stammered.

She tried to focus, tried to concentrate, could not.

"He would have killed you," he said, faltering now, accusatory.

"Anders, what have you done?" she whispered. Then, shaking her head: "I know you will not help, even if I asked you to. I don't want you here any longer. Do you hear me? Now go!"

He departed then, though not without hesitation, and though she heard him pause at the mouth of the cave, his footsteps soon carried him away.

Fenris was growing cold beneath her fingers.

"Oh, Maker," she gasped. "Oh, Maker. Oh."

She tried again, whispering the incantation like a prayer.

She could not release the wound to reach for her dagger, and did not have much blood to give.

She closed her eyes and drew upon the blood that pooled beneath the two of them instead.

With trepidation she drew upon ancient maleficar magic, a ritual steeped in sacrifice, one that had been taught to her many years ago, many, when her gift had still been new. When she'd still had yet to fathom the cost.

#

Fenris's blood stirred.

He opened his eyes to the press of a blindfold and a gag in his throat.

He thought for an instant that he was still in that place, the torment of it, with the mash of fabric between his teeth, the scourge of lyrium perforating his flesh. But his body was cold, his fingertips and toes like ice. He could hear the sea.

Small hands pressed fast to his neck.

He thought: I am awake. I am alive.

#

The spilled blood became mist, it become fog, a fine spray of droplets that rose from the sandy ground, dancing.

Hawke twitched, her spine arched, and the incantation spilled, unbroken, from her lips.

She tensed her fingers and gripped fast to the wound. She urged warmth back into it, life, breath. She pled with ancient, cryptic words.

I will not let you die, she thought.

The red mist surged around them, and there was great power in so much blood, freshly spilled.

It streamed to her now in a glittering arc, hauntingly beautiful, and struck Hawke's hands, rushing between her fingers, despite how they clenched so tightly. And Fenris's throat grew hot, fever hot, it nearly burned the pads of her fingers as she reshaped the flesh, pressing together first the fibers of muscle, the severed veins, and with her thumbs she sealed the wound itself, pinching it closed, leaving a pale, jagged ridge.

The energy left her and she fell back, heaving.

She saw his eyes move then, working beneath the blindfold. He began to teethe at the gag slowly, numbly. Hurriedly she seized the blindfold and pulled it off, and his eyes fluttered, distant, confused. They fell upon her, focusing at last.

He strained momentarily against his bindings, his entire body giving a jerk, but he was weak, so weak, and lay back instead.

She wiped his mouth with the hem of her robes, wiped her hands. She undid the gag and stripped it away.

He leaned over, retching and spitting. He tried to speak and coughed instead. Ropes of saliva drooled from his mouth. Something was blocking his throat.

She leaned over him, cradling the side of his head. She reached, tentatively, with her hand. His eyes rolled upward, meeting hers.

Gently she reached into his mouth, her small fingers gliding over his tongue. He closed his eyes again as the sharp edges of his teeth scraped her skin. She extended her fingers, feeling about as gently as she could, and her fingertips brushed against the soft wetness of fabric.

She grasped it with her fingernails, and, with some difficulty, drew it out.

A ragged shred of fabric, bright scarlet and dripping mucus, slid from Fenris's throat.

He pressed his cheek to the floor, hacking, spraying the ground with spittle. Hawke stared at the scrap of red in her hand. At last he lay still, gasping. She lowered her hand and looked down at him. He avoided her gaze, and in his face there was great weariness and great pain.

His eyelids drooped. He stared at the floor. "Why?" he rasped. "Why did you come?"

The sea pounded against the cave, sudden and booming, like thunder, so close that they could hear the hiss of foam as the waves drew back again.

"Do you think you can walk?" she said.

His eyes flicked back to her own, bloodshot. He nodded slowly.

With her dagger she cut the bindings from his wrists and ankles. She helped him to his feet, pulling his arm over her shoulders, and together they limped from the cave, though they were both weak, staggering against one another along the strand.


	10. Chapter 10

How strange it was to carry him, bolstering his weight against her shoulders, as they stumbled wearily through Hightown. Fenris had made most of the journey from the Wounded Coast but sagged against her now, head lolling, barely conscious. It was difficult going, exhausted as she was, but the Hawke manor was in sight, and with it some comfort.

Her hand trembled as she lifted the key to the heavy oak door. Fenris slumped, and she nearly dropped the key as she struggled to hold him up. She was struck by the weight of him, and for just an instant she smelled bitter wine, the musk of vast unused rooms, the salt-sweat clinging to a black hide tunic. Shaking, she heaved open the door and dragged him inside.

She feared, momentarily, that Anders would be there, that he had returned knowing she would come, would see Fenris, weakened but living. The atrium was dark, however, and the air did not stir.

She carried him to the stairs, her footsteps echoing and uneven. When she climbed, Fenris stirred, mumbling, and he tipped forward, and though she grappled with him she could not find her footing on the stairs, and together they toppled over in a heap.

She struck her elbow, hard, on the slick stone. He had pinned her arm, and she lay partially underneath him, stunned and unable to move.

"Fenris," she groaned. Her arm throbbed.

He mumbled again. His face pressed against her shoulder, his nose into the back of her neck. She wriggled uncomfortably.

"Fenris," she said again, louder this time.

"Petra," he said then, his breath warm and sour on her neck. "Petra."

She blinked. She was light-headed and her limbs felt hollow. She braced herself against the steps and tried, weakly, to push him off. But he lay still, his arm draped over her shoulders, and she slumped back down, defeated.

"Fenris," she said. "You've got to move. I don't think I can lift you."

She turned her head to face him, and he was so close — much too close — that his hair brushed against her face. She jostled him.

He lifted his head, blinking as though he'd been thrust into bright light. He stared as if seeing her for the first time.

"I can't," he whispered.

Something in his eyes fell away.

"You're so pale," he murmured. "You're — cold."

"Get off of me," she said, and, with some effort, he slid away.

#

They lay side by side on the staircase, he on his back, she on her stomach. Fenris stared at the high ceiling, trying to weave together the fraying strands of his thoughts. In his head, potent memories swirled in bits and pieces. From one minute to the next, he was in Danarius's embrace, bound in chains at Justice's hand, bleeding out in the cold seaside cave, and draped on the foyer steps of the Hawke manor. His heart fluttered at each transition, and suddenly he wanted to do nothing more than sleep, right here on the sharp-edged stones.

There was another memory as well, shuffled amongst the rest. All too real now was the slenderness of Hawke's wrist, the softness of her flushed mouth, and the wicked torture of his arousal, fulfilled at last. He felt a twinge of it now, listening to Hawke's shallow breathing, and next he saw Petra's falling stare, the pulp of brain matter dripping from his hand.

He worked his mouth. His lips were chapped and flaking, and his throat a painfully dry chasm to darker places.

"Why did you come for me?" he said, tracing the gables of the ceiling with his eyes.

Hawke shifted minutely, lifting her ear from the step. She lowered it again. "Anders was — in agony," she said, so softly that he almost didn't hear.

He waited, and she did not continue.

He saw Danarius's shimmering eyes, felt his hand cupping his jaw, felt the probing fingers. He heard the thick muffled impact of Hadriana's foot, smelled the wine-hot stench of her breath. He felt the panicked throb of Hawke's jugular beneath his fingers.

"Do you remember what you said to me?" she said.

He blinked slowly at the ceiling.

She shifted again, just barely. "You said, 'Damn the consequences.'"

He heard Hadriana's cooing voice, saw the black-tipped needle descend, felt Hawke's legs press into his sides.

"So why," she said, "did you call out for me?"

#

In the darkened ceiling, Fenris saw now that there was a skylight, a single four-paneled window, curiously small. Its edges were lightening, blushing faint lilac purple and seashell pink.

Side by side they lay, unmoving, on the stairs, stretched out like skins left to dry in the coming dawn. Their bodies lying parallel, she was so near that he could sense her without looking, feel her presence as physically as though they touched. His fingers lightly rested on the step, inches from her upturned palm, his dark arm, entwined with silver vines, beside her pale scar-striped forearm.

Her faint voice thickened with anger. "You were running away when he found you."

It was not a question.

"You fled."

"What did you expect?" he said softly.

"You're a coward."

He watched the window. The stars overhead were watery and indistinct. "And yet you came for me," he said.

"I didn't do it for you." She paused. "And, despite everything — you don't deserve to die."

He gave a long sigh. "Suppose we both die," he said, "here on your staircase?"

"We won't."

"But if so, would that make sweet Anders responsible for both our deaths?"

"Are you trying to make a joke?"

"Failing to."

"Maker," she said, exasperated.

Fenris smiled briefly, without knowing why.

"You're avoiding my question," she said.

"I don't have an answer."

"Coward."

"And you're resorting to name-calling?" he said mildly.

"Think of it as an understated riposte from a 'maleficar whore.'"

Suddenly it became difficult for him to swallow, and he took a deep breath. He closed his eyes.

"I don't care what you do," she said, after some time, "or where you go when you leave here. I don't care if I never see you again. Fenris."

He opened his eyes to look at the sky.

"But you don't get to just run away from the aftermath."

"Hawke."

"No. I'm not finished."

Beside his, her little hand clenched into a fist. "You've told me about your past," she said. "I know what you've lived through. And I think it's horrible. No one deserves it. And I know it's something you live with every day. But when your demons come out. You allow them to consume you. And you become no better than they."

She struck the step with her fist, and the stone vibrated underneath them. "And that is why I couldn't let you die. I couldn't let you just. Get away with it. What you've done."

"You despise me," he said.

"No. You misunderstand." Her voice, which had risen so forcefully, dropped to a whisper. "I pity you."

They lay in silence as the tension left Hawke's hand, and her fingers slowly unfolded, like the petals of a flower.

"I can't sort you out," he said at last. He awaited a response that did not come.

The tiny window had flushed to a dusty rose.

"Hawke. I. There are." He swallowed, tried again. "I've done many things that I. Regret."

He saw her covering her eyes, there on that bed. He saw Lucan's dead black stare, the faces of the other slaves as they hid from him in their stalls. "I have no explanation for you. I know you would not accept any half-hearted apology. And nor should you."

He thought, strangely: If only I could see the sun through that window, before I must leave here.

"I have hurt a great deal of people. Without quite knowing why. The Fog Warriors. A servant girl, who tried only to help me when I was terrified." He shook his head. "I don't know what to say."

The ache in his throat had intensified, threatening to rob him of speech.

"I can't," he said, and stopped, and then simply let the silence be.

#

He'd closed his eyes for what he'd thought was mere minutes, but when he opened them again he felt as though some significant amount of time had passed. He was disoriented, almost drunk, and a sharp pain, like hunger, ensnarled his guts.

His eyes were thick and bleary, and mucus coated his eyelashes. He wiped at them roughly, felt he could scarcely lift his arms to do so. When his vision cleared, he stared up at the ceiling.

The four-paneled window was red, a burning eye in the shadows.

His eyebrows knit together. Surely he hadn't slept until dusk? And yet the light from the window was not the gentle shade of dawn, but bright scarlet, the color of fresh blood. He heard a low rumble then, of something vast and hidden, and it coursed through him like a seismic wave, and he thought, oddly, that he heard someone speak.

"Hawke," he choked out.

He turned to her. She lay on the stairs as she had been, her face turned away from him. He pushed himself up and a jolt ran through him, setting his teeth on edge, prickling the little hairs on the back of his neck. The air was suddenly too warm, warm like a body, and it thrummed with a living pulse.

The rumble resounded again.

"Hawke," he said more urgently. He reached for her hand. Her skin was ice cold, shockingly cold. He sprang up, much faster than he'd thought he could, and crouched over her, turning her over. She was utterly limp, her eyes half-lidded and unfocused and cold, so cold. Her lips tinged with blue.

"Hawke!" He shook her and cupped her cheek. "Something's coming."

Her pulse was nearly imperceptible, slow but there, moving like sludge. He lifted her from the step, surprised at her lightness, the frailty of her. Her eyelids were dark, seemed to purple even as he carried her up the steps, and he wondered where to go, where they could hide.

Her face had drained slate gray, and there was not a hint of warmth there, no trace of color to show that she was even alive. There was only the slow march of blood in her veins beneath the impossible iciness of her flesh. He stumbled up the stairs, hurtling as though through a nightmare, parting the heat like a curtain. The windows all shone red now, blistering squares that concealed any view of the outside. His chest began to heave, fighting to take in air that was acrid like the blast of a furnace.

The rumble sounded again, a dull roar, closer.

Fenris burst into the master bedchamber and kicked the door shut behind him. He bolted it, as if something like locks were enough to stop that which was coming, and went to the bed, cradling her. Her eyelids, bruise-purple, struggled now, and lifted. The whites of her eyes crawled with veins, and her pupils were dilated, blank black discs that stared from the caves of their sockets.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her lips cracked. "I'm sorry."

He laid her against the bed, his arm across her back, his hand smoothing her forehead, her cheek. "Don't," he said. "Don't. What is coming?"

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I didn't think he would come for me this soon."

Another roar, louder, and the floor vibrated, the windows, the posts of the bed. He embraced her, clutching her as though she would be swept away, as though she would blink out of existence if he did not.

"Leave me," she whispered. "Go. Run."

"No," he said.

"Leave me."

"Are you mad?" he hissed. "You mages are a thick-headed lot."

He lowered her to the mattress, his fingers lingering on the ladder of scars at her wrist. He turned, and gripped the bedposts as though shielding her, and another seism shuddered through the room.

"I will not leave you," he said.

The heat had grown unbearable, searing him with the fury of a wildfire, and it flared up as though to drive him back. He flexed his fingers against the bedposts, feeling naked without his armored gauntlets, and cursed Anders for stripping him of these, for taking his greatsword.

His markings pulsed in anticipation, and the pain was sharp and reassuring, as his heart pounded in his throat.

A loud crack shuddered the bedchamber door.

Fenris tensed his muscles, his markings white-hot. The heavy door splintered. Gouges spiraled through the wall, and the door collapsed outward, the splintering wood screaming as it shredded into nothing.

A large hand reached through the door. Thick, barbed claws curled around the frame, impaling the wall. The windows rattled. Picture frames shattered against the floor, and the great fingers tensed and twisted and ripped the very wall away.

The hairs on his arms, the back of his neck, stood on end. He saw two blazing white eyes, rippling muscle, a great gnarled face, a grinning mouth full of teeth.

A demon.

The whole of the house shook at its footsteps. It heaved through the door, its broad shoulders bristling with chitinous spines. When one of its clawed feet thundered against the floor, pustules and fleshy tumors sprang up in its wake and bubbled from the ground.

Fenris's heart quickened. Adrenaline roared in his ears.

The grinning mouth opened, and the demon spoke.

"Little thing," it crooned, in a voice deep like tremors, loud like the splitting earth. "I see you lying there."

"Begone," Fenris said. Sweat ran in rivers down his face and dripped freely from his outstretched arms.

The teeth clenched, long and sharp, behind that terrible smile.

"I know your face," it said then.

In a flash the demon charged, deceptively quick, instantaneous, and Fenris's forearms ignited far too late. The great hand snapped around him and lifted him like nothing. He tore at the demon's face, missed, and his hand ghosted through a bristling shoulder, and when it materialized he clawed with unarmed fingers, ripping free a chunk of nacreous flesh.

The demon laughed.

Fleshy strings and strands writhed from the demon's arm and whipped around Fenris's limbs, climbing up his torso. He tore at them with his fingernails, disgusted at how they pulsed with veins, and they pierced his flesh, wrapped about his neck.

"Don't!" Hawke cried out, from seemingly far away.

The demon turned to her, its unblinking eyes like lights piercing the darkness.

"Little thing," it purred.

Fenris strained in its grip, his markings flashing, guttering out.

"Please don't," Hawke said.

The black lips curled. "How could I kill him," it said, "after you gave so much to save his life?"

"Hawke," Fenris called out.

The great hand opened, dropping him. He struck the floor, writhing. The tendrils snapped loose from the demon's arm and clung to him.

She was still laying back on the bed, too weak to rise.

"Hawke," he shouted, struggling to free himself.

The demon advanced toward her.

"Leave her!" Fenris roared, pulling at the tendrils, though they did not break, would not release him.

"This business is not yours," the demon said. "She belongs to me."

It reached down with barbed claws. It bent over the bed.

"Hawke!" he screamed.

It was whispering to her, its voice so low now that the he could hear only a rumble, feel only the vibrations in the floor. Tumors sprouted on the bedposts, twisted masses of flesh that climbed to the ceiling. One of the claws was sliding down her leg, parting her robe to expose her thigh.

Fenris's throat drained as five claws caressed her thigh, a perfect match to the scars.

He stammered her name, hearing Justice's words, seeing again the grief on his solemn face, the hint of Anders that had emerged.

Her white hand lifted and draped against the demon's massive arm. The barbs caught her flesh and raked through it delicately, reopening the five scars on her leg. The demon's head lowered, its bulk nearly hiding her completely.

Blood ran in ribbons down her leg.

The demon kissed her.

Its other hand slipped down, opening the scars that remained.

Fenris's mouth stretched open, and he howled with fury, but his markings would not light. He had no energy left, nothing at all.

The demon plucked her from the bed, gathering her small form against its chest. It turned to Fenris with a wicked smile.

"I thank you," it rumbled, its eyes flashing so brightly that Fenris squinted with pain. "Enjoy the life that she has won you."

Her head dropped against its chest. Her eyes closed and she did not move.

"Farewell," the demon said, and with an eruption of heat the two of them dissolved, and the tumors and pustules dried up and shattered into dust, the sinews dropping away from him, and as the temperature cooled the red light in the windows faded, leaving Fenris alone in the silent, weak coming of day.

###


End file.
